God Wants Your Delight — Not Just Your Decision
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By John Piper About Christian Hedonism
Audio Transcript
This is the closest thing to the heart of the foundation of what I’m saying: that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. Or to put it another way, you glorify what you enjoy. You glorify what you enjoy.
If you really love something and delight in it and talk about it because it gives you such pleasure, you make much of it — you exalt it. When God is our deepest pleasure, we display him as our highest treasure. This is why the pursuit of joy is not optional: because the pursuit of God’s glory is not optional. The fight for joy is not peripheral because God’s pursuit of his glory is not peripheral.
“When God is our deepest pleasure, we display him as our highest treasure.” Tweet Share on Facebook At the heart of the universe is God’s doing everything for his glory. So, close to the heart of Christianity, is you’re doing everything for joy in God, because what you take joy in is magnified. It’s not just about the things you decide. It’s about the things you love, want, crave, have joy in that you magnify.
God made you to magnify him and, therefore, it cannot be optional or peripheral or non-essential that you say, “It really doesn’t matter that I delight in God. I have decided for God,” or “I am committed to God,” or whatever kind of willpower resolutions you want to make while your heart is in love with pornography or money or family or food. As though it’s just this level of “I decided. I prayed a prayer. I have a commitment and I seethe with worldliness.”
That won’t do it. He gets no glory from that. Food gets glory from that. Pornography gets glory from that. Family gets glory from that. Whatever you treasure with your emotions gets glory from the intensity of those emotions.
